Rumor: Nokia combining Smart Cam and Pro Cam into one app later this year

Looking down at our plethora of Lumia devices, there’s a distinct pattern we’re noticing: there are a ton of Nokia apps. Indeed, when it comes to camera apps one could argue that Nokia has too many with some even overlapping in function. Such is the case with Smart Cam and Pro Cam, which makes us feel a little schizophrenic when we’re choosing camera Lenses to snap that perfect moment.

The app Nokia Camera is supposed to alleviate that problem by combining Smart and Pro Cams into one app for all Lumia devices. So says Nawzil, who according to his Twitter profile is a social network specialist at Microsoft Kuwait. He even posted a supposed icon of the new mega app, though we cannot verify its authenticity.

Suposed Tile for Nokia Camera app

Windows Phone Central hasn’t heard anything about this supposed merger, but much like Nokia’s HERE services, it’s not difficult to believe. Nokia often develops many technologies at once and release them as separate apps. If they resonate well with customers, later Nokia may incorporate them into other services. Think of LiveSight from City Lens and how it is in just about everything these days.

There is one area that needs to be explained though. Up until now, Pro Cam has been reserved for the higher end Lumias, specifically the 92x series and up. How Pro Cam's features trickle down to the more budget friendly Lumias remains to be seen, as it will mean a reversal in policy for Nokia.

Not only that. When do you know when someone's going to walk through your photo and that you will have to erase him/her out. At least this way, you can "enable" the multi-picture option easily instead of launching a separate app or lens, which takes time.

Like I've been posting I'm going with the next program so I don't have to wait for untimely updates anymore I'll just upgrade to the next phone seems like Ms is pumping out phones so why nit take advantage of it and there all coming with gdr3! Us on att are still waiting on gdr2 you think we wanna wait around for gdr3? Nope but we don't want to leave wp so well just upgrade no more frustration it ls win win.

Well spotted.
About time Nokia did this, lens are all well and good as an idea, but you just want one interface when taking photos. Switching back and forth depending on what you want to do is just too cumbersome.

Exactly. As I said in my full post about Nokia Camera app: "But non-PureView phones will not get all the features of Pro Cam when switched to Pro Mode, some features will only work on Lumia 920, 925, 1020, 1520, etc."

Glad they're merging them. I've placed Pro Cam to launch from the camera button but often have I been forced to leave the camera to go open Smart Cam for a specific photo. Having them together is a much more practical solution.

hopefully they'll come up with a smart way of joining them, kinda like switching between photo and video right now, just adding another bubble for smart cam, that would speed things up, otherwise i don't see it being an improvement

I'm also running it on my Lumia 620. It works fine if you don't go into extremes with the settings, like very short shutter speed (like 1/16000), because the lower end cameras can't seem to handle that (I just get a black image with the 1/16000). But other then that it's completely fine. Mostly I like the manual focusing, great for taking macros :)

always wondered why this wasnt the case to begin with. was annoying having to choose the best app for the situation as im taking the photo since a photo taken with the pro cam can't benefit from the smart cam features.

I don't know what the big hassle is for some to just be able to switch lenses rather than having a single application bogged down with extra settings or features which will only turn it into bloatware. You'll end up with a terrible camera application that resembles the hideous one found on Samsung Galaxy S devices.

I pinned them both to the start screen so I can quickly choose the one I want prior to shooting, but if I change my mind after opening, I have 15 lenses to choose from. It's easier to go to start and click the other. Too many lenses makes the lenses option not as efficient as it needs to be, sometimes

Can't believe nobody's mentioned this but Smart Cam currently only supports lower res from what I recall 5mp?. If the two were merged are we to assume that features like bursting would be available at higher (highest) resolutions or no? Is the OS even capable of bursting 20+MP shots?

Nokia needs to combine HERE Maps and HEREDrive+. It's very odd having to toggle between the two. I'm never sure which one will do what I want, and jumping from one to the other slows down the experience.